Spider-Man: Homecoming Is Certified Fresh

During a summer in which pundits have repeatedly suggested audiences are nearing the point of reboot/remake fatigue, the prospect of hitting the reset button on a billion-dollar franchise feels even dicier than it ordinarily might — let alone doing it for the second time in 15 years. But sometimes starting over is just what a flagging film series needs, and that definitely seems to be the case with this weekend’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. After kicking off the training wheels on this latest big-screen iteration of Spidey with new star Tom Holland’s well-received introduction in Captain America: Civil War, the classic character makes his full-length MCU debut here, in a story pitting Holland’s teenaged hero against the Vulture (Michael Keaton), a villain with an axe to grind against Spider-Man’s superhero advisor Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.). For the most part, critics have liked the character’s previous solo outings, but Homecoming comes close to setting a new bar for the franchise; enlivened by Holland’s appropriately youthful exuberance and balanced between costumed antics and John Hughes-style teen angst, Homecoming takes Spider-Man back to its fundamentals — emphasis on the “fun.”

Snowfall struggles to create a compelling drama from its separate storylines, despite Singleton’s accurate recreation of 1983 Los Angeles and a strong lead performance from Damson Idris.